


Snow Demons

by Ironlawyer



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Frostbite, Homelessness, Hurt Tony, Hypothermia, M/M, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-01 19:03:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13301265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironlawyer/pseuds/Ironlawyer
Summary: Steve finds Tony drunk in the snow.  Things don't look good.





	Snow Demons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msermesth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msermesth/gifts).



> Set during Tony's period of heavily drinking and homelessness.
> 
> Fandom Stocking gift for MsErmestH. I tried to write you snowed in angst and almost got there? I hope you find something to like.
> 
> Thanks to dawittiest for the beta.

Steve walks past the spot once, but on the way back his conscience makes him stop. A man, lying semi-conscious on the doorstep of a condemned office block, barely sheltered from the wind and snow with an almost empty bottle of whiskey in his hand. His stained, off-white dress shirt and worn loafers are hopelessly inadequate in temperatures edging towards zero.  His hair and beard are greasy and scraggly, covering his face like a man who’s been living like this for years. He smells of whiskey and piss.

Steve only stops because he can’t bear to see it any longer. Even a stranger deserves better than this. He crouches down, pulls off one glove and feels at his neck for a pulse. Steve hisses from the cold and the man’s eyes flutter open. ‘Steve?’ he moans, and there’s whiskey on his breath.

Steve hisses again because he knows those eyes and that voice. ‘Oh god,’ he says. ‘Tony?’

There’s a sunken, hollow look in his face, like he’s been half-starved for months, but it hasn’t been that long, barely two weeks since he last saw him. Steve tries to tell himself he would’ve noticed this, would’ve known how far Tony was falling, would’ve been there to catch him. But he had walked away, too weak to watch the one man he would do anything for showing him how little he could do.

He kneels to the ground, the sidewalk burning through his pants where his knees touch it. He wonders how Tony is still alive. Tony’s skin is pale and puffy, a blue tinge stains his lips and his breathing sounds wheezy, strained, like he’s just run a marathon.

‘Wh-why are you here?’ Tony asks. Steve answers by pulling the whiskey bottle from stiff fingers and throwing it across the street. It smashes in the road. The glass will probably rupture someone’s tire soon enough, but he can’t bring himself to care.

‘How can you do this to yourself?’ he says. He wants to say, _how can you do this to me?_

Tony is silent.

Steve unzips his jacket, pulls Tony onto his lap, holds him close and tight and feels him trembling all over. ‘You’re hypothermic,’ he says. ‘Do you want to die?’ And it’s meant to be flippant, derisive, but Tony turns his face away and says nothing. For a moment then, Steve can’t feel the ice beneath his knees or the wind burning his skin. His fingers clench in Tony’s shirt and he wraps his arms tighter around him. He let Tony bring them here, push and push until the distance between them was so great Steve couldn’t see how much he was suffering. He would’ve let Tony die.

‘It’s going to be okay,’ Steve says. ‘You’re not going to die.’ Steve is shaking now too, the ice of Tony’s skin seeping into his own. He thinks that if Tony were to die here, he would want to die too. He would let himself be frozen in the ice and this time never wake up.

‘I can’t feel my fingers,’ Tony says.

Tony’s hands have been resting in the snow for god knows how long. They’re swollen and blistering, the skin turning pale and grey and when Steve touches them the skin feels hard and icy like it shouldn’t belong to something living.

He squeezes Tony’s fingers. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘I can’t feel them,’ Tony repeats.

Steve has seen enough frostbite to know this is not something Tony will recover from. He lets his breath shake and pretends it’s from the cold. He pictures Tony’s fingers in the workshop, tinkering, always tinkering.

‘It’s going to be okay,’ he says because he wishes he could believe it, wishes Tony wasn’t lying here, killing himself, wishes he’d been there to stop him. ‘I need to get help. You need an ambulance.’

‘Don’t leave.’ Tony’s voice is so quiet and weak, Steve can hardly hear it over the violent winds. Steve wants to say that he wouldn’t leave, but just because Tony is hurt now, doesn’t mean the sickness is cured. Just because he can’t watch him dying quickly, doesn’t mean he can watch him killing himself slowly either. He tells himself Tony is a lost cause, so it will hurt less when he loses him.

Instead of a reply, he wraps his coat around Tony’s shoulders, lifts him and cradles him in his arms thinking of that night in the flophouse. Tony could’ve died then too. ‘We’ve done this before,’ he says more to himself than to Tony.

‘I’m sorry,’ Tony mutters into his shoulder, and Steve thinks that if he was really sorry, this wouldn’t be happening.

As soon as he steps out of the alcove the wind strikes him like a physical force. Steve plants his feet and holds Tony tighter. He prays that he can get help before they’re both buried in the snow, their bodies waiting to be found by some stranger in the morning. Tony’s eyes are closed now, and Steve can’t hear his breathing over the wind. He looks dead.

The wind is blowing the smell of whiskey to Steve’s nose and a part of him wants to throw Tony down and leave him here. Tony has chosen this. All it would’ve taken was one knock on the door, but Tony chose booze and Tony chose death and Tony did not choose Steve.

The hospital is maybe a mile away and into the wind. The streets are empty, Steve’s feet are heavy. ‘You’re not going to die. Do you hear me, Tony?’ He shakes him, but Tony eyes stay closed. He has never let someone die when he could save them and he won’t let Tony ruin that like he has ruined so much else between them. ‘You’re not going to fucking die.’

He drags his feet through the snow, his own fingers numbing now, despite the gloves. Tony is still and lifeless in his arms and he wonders if he’ll notice when his heart stops beating. If it already has.

He pushes on, each step feeling heavier, slower, his feet moving on auto-pilot.  When he finally sees the bright lights of the hospital, his knees shake and he almost collapses.

He stumbles into the emergency room, cries for help and hands Tony over to frantic doctors.

The nurse takes him to the side, wraps him in a blanket and sits him down where he can still see Tony. She asks him questions he can’t answer – _how long has he been out, how much has he had to drink, does he have insurance._ ‘Is he going to live?’ Steve asks instead of giving answers. ‘Can you save his fingers?’ Then he smells the second-hand whiskey steeped into his clothes and wonders if he even cares anymore.

They wheel Tony away where he can’t see him and the nurse asks Steve if he knows him and if he’s going to be staying. He stares at the door and asks himself how many more times he can do this.

‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t know him.’

**Author's Note:**

> On [Tumblr](http://ironlawyer.tumblr.com/post/169513462697/fic-snow-demons)


End file.
